The Hill’s Morning Report — Congress poised to avert default in victory for McCarthy

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 06/01/23 6:20 AM ET

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There is every expectation that months of partisan jockeying about the federal budget and U.S. borrowing is almost over in Washington. For now.

Congress appears poised to avert default if the Senate can embrace Wednesday’s House-passed compromise and send it to President Biden with all deliberate speed.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) urged fellow Republicans to back the two-year deal he negotiated with Biden, calling it a “small step putting us on the right track,” and 149 of his GOP colleagues followed his lead on Wednesday night. Seventy-one voted no. The bill sailed through the chamber, 314-117. Democrats helped push the legislation over the finish line with 165 members in favor while 46 were opposed (The Hill).

The New York Times: See who voted for and against the debt limit package.

Despite heated condemnations from ultra-conservative House members that McCarthy caved to the White House and did a poor negotiating job during the first real test since his rise in January, few GOP colleagues have seriously entertained deposing him and there is no obvious competitor vying for the job, at least this week (The New York Times).

Biden, who was en route to Colorado when House members voted, had warned members of both parties throughout May that they would not get everything they sought. He urged House Democrats to vote yes, despite their angst that they were caught between what they see as bad and worse policies. The president later thanked McCarthy for negotiating “in good faith” and thanked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) for “his leadership.”

House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) on Wednesday urged support for the package but accused Republican leaders of waging “war on the poor,” a sentiment shared by many progressives.

The Hill: House Republicans had to first get the debt bill over a procedural hurdle — with Democratic help.

Democrats who voted for passage said removing the risk of a catastrophic default, estimated on Monday, was their rationale, even if they helped Republicans attain two years of spending caps into 2025 along with work requirements tied to food and other assistance for the poor. The bill would cut federal spending by $1.5 trillion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

NBC News and The Associated Press: What’s in and out of the House-passed debt limit bill.

The Senate will vote on the bill as soon as possible, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who initially frowned on using the debt ceiling as a wedge and said from the outset that negotiations were between McCarthy and Biden — urged his GOP colleagues to send the bill to the president for his signature.

▪ The Hill: Five things to watch in the Senate on the debt bill.

▪ The Washington Post: Senate leaders stress a time crunch before the government won’t be able to pay its bills as they prepare for the House-passed legislation. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he’s a “no” vote and at least two GOP senators are eyeing amendment votes that may slow down the legislation’s path to final passage.

▪ Punchbowl News: Senators have amendments in hand: Inside the Senate’s plan on the debt limit.

▪ The Hill: Senate Republicans are being encouraged by House conservatives to defeat or delay the House-passed debt bill. “I don’t think that does any good, the delay factor,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) told The Hill. He plans to vote “no” on the measure when it reaches the Senate floor.

▪ The Hill: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said he will oppose the House-passed bill when it gets to the Senate, calling it a “fake response to burdensome debt.”

Biden late Wednesday called the bill “good news for the American people and the American economy,” saying in a written statement that the compromise protects health care programs, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and help for veterans, students and families.

“I have been clear that the only path forward is a bipartisan compromise that can earn the support of both parties,” the president said. “This agreement meets that test. I urge the Senate to pass it as quickly as possible so that I can sign it into law.”

▪ The Hill: What House passage of the debt ceiling bill signifies: Five takeaways.

▪ The Hill: Republicans defend tougher work requirements for federal assistance to low-income adults, but challenge cost estimates.

▪ The Hill: The clawback of unspent COVID-19 funds in the debt limit deal spurs public health fears.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill, The Washington Post and Politico: How McCarthy and Biden came together on the debt deal. “Soft food” to “good faith.”

▪ The Washington Times: McCarthy, seeking to mollify conservatives on Wednesday, vowed to create a bipartisan commission “to look at the entire budget” and to identify future budget cuts. “This debt is too large,” he repeated.

▪ The Hill: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) plans to force a floor vote this week on cutting total federal spending by 5 percent in each of the next two years, including Social Security and Medicare. It’s a topic that divides Senate Republicans.

▪ The Hill: A national security adviser to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) resigned amid the controversy over the senator’s hold on military promotions to protest a Pentagon travel reimbursement policy tied to abortion.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS

The GOP presidential field is expected to expand even further next week with entries by a former governor, a current governor and a former vice president.

Former New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie, 60, is expected to announce his presidential campaign in New Hampshire next Tuesday, entering an increasingly crowded field to launch his second bid for the GOP nomination after unsuccessfully running in 2016 (Axios and NBC News). On his first try, Christie came in sixth place in the New Hampshire primary; he later endorsed former President Trump and served as an adviser before becoming a prominent Trump critic. The former president has returned fire while dismissing Christie’s ability to impact his campaign.

It is Christie’s willingness to criticize Trump’s behavior as disqualifying that is the foundation of his eagerness to join the presidential contest to try to steer voters beyond the MAGA base to consider another choice. In February, as part of his role as an ABC News commentator, Christie predicted that next year’s GOP primary would most likely include “seven or eight” candidates at the outset, rather than the sprawling Republican lineup he experienced in 2016. “I don’t think this is going to be a big, crowded field,” he added. The conventional wisdom is that the larger the crowd of Republican primary contenders, the more likely Trump is to win and become the party’s nominee to challenge Biden. As of this morning, there are seven official candidates in the GOP primary. Trump has a wide lead in polls ahead of recently declared candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Christie’s assessments of Trump frequently aim to burrow under his skin.

🎤 “Obviously, he’s afraid,” Christie said last month of Trump’s reticence about debates. “He’s afraid to get on the stage against people who are serious,” he told conservative media personality Hugh Hewitt during an interview. “If he really cares about the country — and I have deep questions about that — but if he really cares about the country, then he’s going to get up there, and he shouldn’t be afraid. … If, in fact, his ideas are so great, if his leadership is so outstanding, then his lead will only increase if he gets on the stage, not decrease.”

🎤 Christie blasted Trump following a CNN town hall in May for not answering a question about whether he wants Ukraine to win against Russia. “More proof that he continues to be Putin’s puppet,” he tweeted.

🎤 Back in 2016, before endorsing the former president, Christie took aim at Trump’s run on NBC’s “The Apprentice.” “There are folks in this race who don’t care about what the law says because they’re used to being able to just fire people indiscriminately on television,” he said. “So, they don’t have to worry about what laws say or not say.”

As The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes in The Memo, Christie’s decision complicates the electoral calculus for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Even as the former governor, who left office in 2018, is seen as unlikely to be a front-line contender for the nomination, he has the potential to scramble the contest, according to sources across the party’s ideological spectrum.

Meanwhile, former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been flirting for months with a 2024 presidential bid, plans to launch his campaign on June 7 in Iowa. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will enter the GOP presidential field June 7 in Fargo, N.D. (The Wall Street Journal).

▪ Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Pence canceled a tentative booking to appear at Georgia’s GOP convention next week because he’s appearing instead at the June 7 CNN town hall at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa.

▪ WRIC: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) is sending 100 National Guard troops, 21 support personnel and other Virginia resources to the U.S. southern border in Texas for what he says is security and migrant enforcement.

▪ CNN: Trump was reportedly captured on tape talking about a classified document he kept after leaving the White House, indicating his awareness that he retained sensitive material, not a secret document he declassified.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned two state laws that outlawed abortion, but the procedure is still banned in the state (Tulsa World). In Wisconsin, a group of Republican lawmakers is introducing a package of bills that it says would clarify the state’s abortion laws, but the state’s leading abortion advocacy group says the proposals are the latest effort to restrict access to the procedure and make Wisconsin’s pre-Civil War abortion ban permanent (WPR).

▪ MSNBC: Leaked recording shows DeSantis supporters worried about abortion bans.

▪ The Washington Post: Claiming conflicts, Trump lawyers seek recusal by a New York judge in the criminal case in which the former president was indicted for falsifying business records.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Tensions remained high in Russia after a rare series of drone attacks in Moscow damaged buildings Tuesday, the first strikes to hit civilian residences in the capital since the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Russia said it shot down or disabled all of the drones in the attacks — which it blamed on Kyiv. Ukraine denied any direct involvement. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote in a WhatsApp message that “Ukraine is not directly connected to the nighttime drone attack in Moscow. There is no strategic sense in this” (The Washington Post).

Although Western governments initially focused their military support on bolstering Ukrainian defenses against Russian aggression, there have been growing deliveries of offensive weapons to Kyiv, though it was unclear who manufactured the drones used in Tuesday’s attack. Western governments have also largely declined to criticize cross-border raids and strikes on Russian territory publicly. A Kremlin spokesperson said Russia would have preferred “at least some words of condemnation,” from the West for the attacks but others went further, echoing Moscow’s frequent accusations that NATO was engaged in a proxy war (The New York Times).

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Drones hit Russian oil refineries as Moscow shores up the front line.

▪ The Washington Post: Biden shows a growing appetite to cross Russian President Vladimir Putin’s red lines.

▪ The Associated Press: Moscow drone attack exposes Russia’s vulnerabilities, fuels criticism of the military.

▪ Politico EU: Closed airspace, limited overnights: Moldova hosts Europe’s leaders in Russia’s shadow.

▪ Reuters: Zelensky joins European leaders at summit in Moldova.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced China’s apparent refusal to meet with senior Pentagon leaders Wednesday after an incident last week that U.S. officials described as an “unnecessarily aggressive” encounter between military aircraft over the South China Sea. Blinken, speaking during a visit to Sweden, said the “dangerous” incident “only underscores why it is so important that we have regular, open lines of communication, including by the way between our defense ministers” (The Washington Post). The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Beijing rejected a request from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet with his Chinese counterpart during a security summit in Singapore.

▪ The Associated Press: North Korea’s failed satellite launch triggers public confusion, security jitters in neighbors.

▪ Politico EU: Reelected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pulls out of European summit.

▪ The New York Times: After Erdoğan’s attacks, fear spreads among LGBTQ people in Turkey.

OPINION

■ At Harvard, Tom Hanks offered an increasingly rare moment of grace, by Nancy Gibbs, opinion contributor, The Washington Post.

■ AIs age of mimicry will make human mimes cry, by Parmy Olson, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion.

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will meet at 11 a.m.

The Senate will meet at 10 a.m.

The president will address the graduating class of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs at 9:40 a.m. MDT. Biden will depart Colorado and return to the White House by 7:40 p.m. (Colorado Newsline).

The first lady is in Jordan. In the afternoon, she will greet families and staff of the U.S. Embassy and meet with U.S. military service members in Amman. She will attend the wedding and reception for His Royal Highness Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II and Rajwa Khalid Alseif at Zahran Palace.

Vice President Harris will speak to the news media by phone at 1:15 p.m. about administration efforts to address racial bias in housing and real estate appraisals.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Oslo, Norway. The secretary will be in Finland at the end of the week. The secretary met this morning with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and attended an address by Oslo Mayor Marianne Borgen. Blinken participated in a morning gathering of NATO foreign ministers and posed for a group photograph. He meets at midday local time with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. Blinken will hold a press conference in the afternoon, followed by a meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt in Oslo. In the afternoon, the secretary also will meet employees of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo and their families.
.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet with incoming World Bank President Ajay Banga at 2:30 p.m.

Economic indicator: The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on claims for unemployment benefits filed during the week ending May 27.

ELSEWHERE

➤ SUPREME COURT

Supreme Court justices are under scrutiny about ethics as some court-watchers advocate enforceable standards to avoid conflicts and increase transparency on the court, including with recusals. Associate Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the conservative majority, provided no explanation Tuesday when he recused himself from a request to take up an appeal from Shell and Phillips 66. A week earlier, Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s liberals, cited prior government employment when she recused herself after a request to take up a capital case, The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld reports. Kagan previously served as U.S. solicitor general and was a White House associate counsel.

The high court recently released a statement of ethics principles saying a justice “may provide a summary explanation of a recusal decision.” Kagan exercised that option, but Alito provided no explanation.

“It really ought to be the direction the court goes, because at a time when there’s increasing skepticism, it’s one damned scandal after another, one way of dealing with that is through a little bit more transparency,” said Charles Geyh, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. “And when they are disqualifying themselves, I mean, it’s a moment to be recognized, right? It’s good. It’s a good thing,” he added.

▪ The Guardian: U.S. Supreme Court end-of-term decisions could transform key areas of public life.

▪ CNN: Texas man urges Supreme Court to stay out of major Second Amendment case.

THE CLOSER

Take Our Morning Report Quiz

And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by debt limit votes in Congress, we’re eager for some smart guesses about the legislative branch.

Be sure to email your responses to asimendinger@digital-staging.thehill.com and kkarisch@digital-staging.thehill.com — please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

Senators weren’t elected, but appointed by their state legislatures, until the 17th Amendment was ratified in what year?

1872
1913
1899
1904

Which founding father thought senators should serve for life?

George Washington
James Madison
Alexander Hamilton
Thomas Jefferson

The House has the power to name a president in the case of a tie. How many times has the chamber used this power? *Bonus point: name one presidential election where the lower chamber decided the winner.

Never
Twice
Four times
Three times

The Reapportionment Act of 1929 set the House’s current size at 435 members. What was that number based on?

The size of the chamber as previously established by the Apportionment Act of 1911
Population figures from the 1920 Census
A statistical model developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
A number drawn from a top hat

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